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(RNS) As Pope Benedict XVI marks the fifth anniversary of his election on Monday (April 19), the cloud of controversy that’s overshadowing the Vatican likely isn’t what he had in mind to mark the occasion. A spreading international scandal over the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy has focused in recent weeks on charges…

JIEGU, China – Tibetan monks in crimson robes dug through earthquake rubble alongside government rescue workers Friday, a startling image for a Chinese region long strained by suspicion and unrest. The central government has poured in troops and equipment to this remote western region, but it is the influential Buddhist monks who residents trust with…

BERLIN – A German court convicted ultraconservative British Bishop Richard Williamson on Friday for denying the Holocaust in a television interview. A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg found Williamson guilty of incitement for saying in a 2008 interview with Swedish television that he did not believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during…

CLEVELAND (RNS) Six years ago, United Church of Christ advertising spots promoting the church’s openness and diversity were shunned by major broadcast networks as “too controversial.” Rejections of the 30-second spots — which showed unnamed churches turning away gays and minorities — sparked a continuing battle between the UCC and broadcasters over free speech, censorship,…

SAN ANTONIO – Two members of a polygamist sect were sentenced to prison Thursday on bigamy charges, the first legal finding of multiple marriages in a community that has mostly dodged questions about the practice. Lehi Barlow Jeffs pleaded no contest to bigamy and sexual assault of a child in San Angelo, avoiding a trial…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Breaking his silence as an international clergy sex abuse scandal has roiled the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (April 15) spoke of the need to “do penance.” The pope, in an indirect reference to the abuse scandal making headlines around the world, made his comments in a sermon to members…

(RNS) A Muslim woman in Maryland says she was denied a foster care license by a state-authorized agency because she does not allow pork in her home. After 26-year-old Tashima Crudup was denied her license, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland filed a discrimination complaint with the Baltimore City Community Relations Commission on behalf…

(RNS) A Chicago man will be allowed to take his 3-year-old daughter to Catholic Mass, despite protests from the girl’s Jewish mother, a Chicago judge ruled Tuesday (April 13). The girl’s parents, Joseph Reyes and Rebecca Reyes, were married for six years before their marriage fell apart. Joseph Reyes had converted to Judaism when the…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A day after the Vatican’s No. 2 official suggested a link between pedophilia and homosexuality, the pope’s top spokesman issued a clarification Wednesday (April 14), apparently hoping to diffuse the ensuing controversy. “Church authorities do not consider it within their competency to make general statements of a specifically psychological or medical nature,…

(RNS) In South Carolina, three black Methodist denominations launched a plan to host Saturday academies nationwide to mentor young black males. In Chicago, black Baptists announced they would raise $50 million for health clinics, schools and reconstructed churches in earthquake-devastated Haiti. And in Miami, African-American Baptists, Methodists and Pentecostals decided to re-establish a Conference of…
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